Seed Thoughts for Singers

by Frank Herbert Tubbs

VII.
AMBITION.

The very first question to ask of an applicant for vocal lessons is "what is your ambition?" By that, I mean, the teacher should know at the very start what purpose the pupil has in study, or if he has any purpose. The intention of the pupil should make a difference in the consideration given to the pupil in the matter of voice trial. If an applicant says he wishes to sing in Opera and the teacher sees that he lacks all capacity for such high position, he should frankly say so; if the applicant says that he wishes to learn to sing well that he may have pleasure in his own singing and give pleasure to his friends, that should be taken into account. Such person, provided he has any voice and musical instinct, can reach the height of his ambition and his study should be encouraged.

The first visit of an applicant to a teacher is a most important event in the life of the pupil. The importance of it is not appreciated. To very many persons it marks a change—a veritable conversion—in their lives. A mistake made by the teacher with regard to the future of the pupil is a serious matter. That visit gives the teacher his chance to plan his treatment and is akin to the diagnosis of the physician. The pupil places himself in the hands of the teacher as thoroughly as does the patient give himself over to the physician. The case assumes importance from this fact. Responsibility by the teacher is assumed. The musical future of the pupil is in his hands. It may be for the good of the pupil that he found his particular teacher and it may not be.

"What is your ambition regarding your music?" is the safeguard of the teacher. Knowing that, he can have a basis for examination and a ground for promises to the student. In the large cities, teachers are troubled with that which would be very amusing were it not for the sad part of it. Students of music come from the smaller cities and from the country and begin a series of visits to the different studios for the purpose of selecting a teacher. Everyone seems to recommend a new teacher and the student calls upon all. The result is surely disastrous to the pupil. He or she is left in doubt as to whom to go for study. The different promises made, the compliments paid, the hopes of ambition raised, are all enough to unbalance the judgment of older heads than those who usually seek the music studio. When a teacher is finally selected, it takes a long time to settle down into confidence in him so that the best result can be obtained. I said it would be amusing to the teacher were it not sad. I have known persons to boast that they had had "as good as a lesson" from the different teachers visited. I even know men who are teaching voice culture and singing in this city who claim to teach certain methods, and all they know of those methods is what they picked up in the interviews which they pretended were to see about arranging for study. As if any man of experience would give (or could give) his instruction in a talk of ten or fifteen minutes! The men who have ways of teaching which are so good that they bring valuable renown are too shrewd to be caught in any such way as that. What shall be done about such persons? Nothing. Let them alone. They die out after a time. Were there any way to prevent other people from following their example it would be a most excellent thing. But as society is made up, as long as the flash of a piece of glass passes for the sparkle of a diamond just so long will the cheater spring up, flourish and disappear.

A question more to the point is "How can the racing from studio to studio be stopped?" I frankly say that I do not know. Generally I avoid bringing up a subject which has not in my own mind reached solution. I can suggest remedies if not cures.

By writing about it some little help may be given the student. The remedy—nearly all city teachers have some special branch, a branch in which they obtain satisfactory results. One succeeds in Italian Opera, another in Voice Culture; one in Rudimental Study, another in Oratorio; one has many pupils in church choirs, another forms delightful classes of society pupils. "What is your ambition?" Find that teacher whose general reputation is in that which you want to do and be, and commence study with him. A very few lessons with that teacher—say ten lessons—will tell the student whether he is the right teacher or not. Probably the teacher will prove satisfactory. If not, by that time—acquaintance with the teachers of the city will permit more certain selection, the second time. "But," say you, "those ten lessons have cost something." True, but they have not cost half as much as it costs to settle an unbalanced mind.

To return to the first question, what is your ambition? Has it ever occurred to you to wonder what becomes of all the music students—how many are there? Who can tell? One teacher boasts of having given four hundred vocal lessons last month; another caps that by claiming five hundred. Allow for all exaggeration, and say that these teachers (and thirty or forty others had as many students at work) had all they could do. They had from thirty to fifty pupils under study. What is to become of them, and how many ever amount to anything? The teacher has responsibility. He who receives every person who applies, especially if he tells him what a good voice he has and how well he can sing after a term or two, borders very nearly upon the scoundrel, or else the fool. If he thinks he can make a singer out of every person who comes to him he is the fool; if he flatters a person whom he knows can never become a singer, he is a scoundrel. He who is wise will find out the desire of the applicant and tell him frankly whether or not he can reach the desired goal. If he thinks it cannot be done there is no objection to his pointing out some other channel of musical usefulness and advising him to enter that. If the applicant has no aptitude for the desired study the only honest course is to tell him not to waste time and money on his voice. Any conscientious teacher feels a shudder sometimes over the responsibility of his position when the thought comes up "what becomes of all the music students?" We can ask "what becomes of the pins?" and have the question answered. The material of which they are made can be supplied anew. "So," say you, "will new pupils come." But those who are now studying must be made something of. The day they begin study a new world opens to them. Is it for good or ill? That remains for the teacher to solve. Every true teacher improves every pupil who studies with him. Some of them will become good singers and fine musicians. These are the ones most talked about and the teacher finds pleasure in the added reputation which they bring, but the others have the right to demand that they shall be raised to a higher plain of life because of their music lessons.

What becomes of all the ambitious youths and maidens who study singing? Only one or two now and then amount to very much in professional life. Thousands attempt to be "Patties," but who has reached her height? Some one is at fault that this is so. Whatever belongs to the singing teacher, let him assume, but let him keep in mind that there is something to guard in the future. Over in Milan, ten years or more ago, while a student there, I met a great many Americans who like myself were there for study. I was told that at least two thousand American young ladies were there. Probably more than half of them expected to become successful singers in grand opera. How many successful singers in grand opera have appeared during the last ten years? A very few surely. What has become of the "ninety and nine?" Of that, say nothing. I saw the wretched lives they were leading at Milan—most of them—and advised, nay, begged, that they would go home to America and do anything for a living if they must work, rather than to stay there. Taking in washing would be much more ennobling than what some of them were doing. Whose fault was it that so many were there, and that so many are there all the time? Teachers of singing here at home must sooner or later realize that they did it. How, when, or for what purpose? Well, much might be said which will not be. Had an honest expression of the belief regarding the possibility of gratifying the original ambition been given, very much of the wrong done could have been avoided.